"'You must realize that Dr. Seldon's plans include all eventualities with significant probabilities. This is one of them. It will end well; almost certainly so for the project; and with reasonable probability for you.'

"'What are the figures?' demanded Gaal.

"'For the project, over 99.9 percent.'

"'And for myself?'

"'I am instructed that this probability is 77.2 percent.'

"'Then I've got better than one chance in five of being sentenced to prison or death.'

"'The last is under one percent.'"

For it is possible to get the giggles about the work of GBN at the same instant one realizes it can be deathly serious. Kahane, for example, referred to the scenarios South Africa had in fact gone through on its way to joining the rest of the globe in a marvelously camp secret-agent-sounding burst: "We're in Flamingos now. Icarus is still a danger -- but one that is present in everyone's mind, and is therefore less likely to occur. Lame Duck is also less likely for the same reason. Ostrich is past now. The MF [Mont Fleur] team will be reconstituted (with a wider range of viewpoints) this August. I will facilitate again. Two key members of MF-1 are now in the Cabinet."

Peter Schwartz, the spark plug of GBN, did not giggle online. He of course took it all seriously.

"Since Flamingos was the most balanced and optimistic scenario, it is an interesting outcome," he mused. "It is rare that the best case is the real outcome."

"On reflection," wrote Schwartz, the Hari Seldon of GBN, "it would be interesting to explore why that was so."

Life is not going to be easy in the 21st century for people who insist on black-and-white descriptions of reality. The shape of the truth isn't static; it shifts depending on where one stands. Bottomless truth lies in the gray.

There are multiple layers of truths about this organization. GBN is a network. All networks shimmer with gray boundaries, vague membership, and multiple - often contradictory - goals. Like the search committee for the MacArthur "genius" grants, Global Business Network assumes that if you are one of the hundred-or-so remarkable people in whom they might have an interest, they know how to find you. It's spooky.

And the network is a tangle. This article on GBN was commissioned by a magazine whose executive editor is a member of GBN. It is running in a magazine which mentions a GBN member in almost every issue. Four GBNers have already been on its cover. And, as I mentioned at the beginning, it was written by a journalist who is a member of GBN.